Authorities say Harmes took Janet Bastendorf's cellphone -- her mother's only link to the outside world -- then left the woman alone without food or water for 10 days before she died on Jan. 6 of an infection.

Harmes tells the judge that she and her mother “had an understanding” that the woman wanted to die at home, not in a hospital. But the judge rejected that explanation calling it “inexcusable and reprehensible.”